


Doublespeak

by rain_sleet_snow



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Minor Character Death, Morally Ambiguous Character, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Original Trilogy as History, Politics, Stormtrooper Culture, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 12:06:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9439439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: Like most politicians, Leia Organa knows how to say two things at once.She knows how to listen to two things at once, too.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Written for fandom_stocking for saturnofthemoon. :) My headcanon/wishful thinking that Phasma bumps Hux off is almost certainly inspired by Radi and/or the desire to watch Gwendoline Christie put a space Nazi through a metal wall.

The war was over, for a given definition of over, but Leia Organa had been here before - metaphorically speaking - and she kept her eyes sharp and that second sense she never publicly owned to alert. The First Order had lost, yes. But so had the Empire, once, and dying creatures are often the fiercest.

 

Leia Organa kept her eyes open.

 

As she looked around the hall of the old palace where the talks were being held, she thought that she had been here before literally as well as figuratively. She had seldom visited Chandrila before the end of the Rebellion - Mon Mothma had been her mentor in rebellion as well as a senator's duties, but for the sake of appearances their meetings on Coruscant had been the only times they ever saw each other - but the peace talks had been held in this Chandrilan palace then, too. The old place was showing its age as much as Leia and Luke were; they had looked at each other half-smiling as they landed, each of them knowing what the other one was thinking.

 

 _You've aged better than I have_ , Luke had remarked.

 

 _You didn't have Breha Organa reminding you to moisturise_ , Leia had retorted. Her mother had been long dead by the time that first war was over, but Leia had never been able to so much as fall asleep wearing eyeliner without hearing her mother's slight, disappointed sigh. Take care of your skin, Breha had always told her. It's the most important organ you've got.

 

Breha Organa, like most politicians, was adept at speaking words that meant more than one thing at once; she hadn't just been teaching her daughter to maintain a skincare regime, and the small, tight lines between her brows and around her mouth had told Leia that very clearly.

 

The palace was much the same as it had been when the Rebellion ended and Mon Mothma had led the Alliance to the negotiating table. Perhaps it was a little shabbier, the way Leia felt. Perhaps a few bits were missing, Leia couldn't remember. It wasn't important. There were faces missing, people of all species who had been middle-aged then, who were dead now. Some of them hadn't even lived to see the rise of the First Order, and some of those who had hadn't taken it seriously. Some of them had children here; Leia remembered Kes Dameron waiting in the wings to scrutinise the Empire's paperwork and find the lies in the numbers they waved beneath the Alliance's collective nose, and here now was Poe Dameron, lurking quietly and watching Finn and Rey with an open fondness that reminded Leia so much of his mother.

 

Leia's own son, of course, was dead, and so was Han, who should have arrived at the very last minute to send the protocol droids into fits and make her laugh. A great deal had changed. But good changes came, as well as bad. There was Finn, who had wanted to run and had turned back for Rey's sake, and once he'd decided to stay had become a greater asset than Leia had ever dreamed of. And there was Rey, standing next to him and fidgeting in her cream robes, lean and lethal and shining so brightly with the Force that Leia had to resist the instinct to cover her eyes.

 

A stormtrooper in shining chromium came to a halt before Leia and saluted. She had removed her helmet, like all the ranking troopers here, but - unlike most - she had learned to be expressionless. Leia recognised her, though more by the armour and Finn's awed stories than by her appearance; a tall, strongly-built human woman with a pale, square face, pale blue eyes, and short, neat blonde hair, she had risen through the ranks rapidly after Starkiller, but the Resistance had had no images of her face until recently.

 

"She's the perfect stormtrooper," Finn had told Leia. "She never takes off her helmet - _never_."

 

The way he said it, it had sounded as if he fully believed that there was no human face beneath the helmet. Finn was more than willing to go up against the First Order - he'd fought his own squadmates for the Resistance, even as early as the Battle of Takodana - but he retained a deep, almost superstitious respect for this particular stormtrooper's skills. Even after dropping her down a garbage chute.

 

"The perfect stormtrooper," Leia had repeated, and then added, testing: "Like Hux?"

 

A strange look had crossed Finn's face; part scorn, part hate, part indifference. "Hux was never a trooper," he'd said. "Not like Phasma. Phasma fought her way up, all the way."

 

"General Phasma, I assume," Leia said now, looking up at the other woman. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Finn walking over to flank her. He was worried, Leia knew, she could feel it; she didn't know why. Leia's strength with the Force was not the same as her brother's, and she had never chosen to use it the same way, but she was more than capable of dealing effectively with anyone foolish enough to attack her here.

 

But Finn always worried. Distantly, Leia found it charming.

 

"General Organa, I assume," Phasma replied. One of her eyebrows flickered very slightly. "The Huttslayer."

 

"Now that's a name I haven't heard for a very long time." The stormtroopers had as many legends for her as they had for Luke, Leia knew; Finn had told her every one he'd ever heard. But even though he knew the story of her execution of Jabba the Hutt, he didn't know the name Huttslayer.

 

"I'm professionally interested in history."

 

Leia let one of her own eyebrows flicker. "That seems like an interesting professional interest, general. For a stormtrooper."

 

"Military history," Phasma clarified. "And the history of recent Force-users. With the Knights of Ren on board, it was an appropriate precautionary measure."

 

Finn had also told Leia things he didn't realise he knew, about the way the Knights of Ren had behaved, about the damage they were allowed to trail in their wake. Finn had never known their names, or been certain of their powers. But he was observant, and Leia had been able to piece together quite a lot of information from the snippets he'd seen. She knew why a good commander of fighters who weren't Force-sensitive might turn to history to teach herself how to protect them from Force-users' malice.

 

"What a fascinating strategy." Leia made a show of looking around her. In truth, she'd already had people looking for the slicked-back red hair, viciously perfect uniform and rat-like face of the man who had been supposed to meet her, and she was sure now that he wasn't here - but there was no need to advertise that knowledge. "I was expecting General Hux. Has he been... delayed?"

 

A muscle in Phasma's cheek moved, though the rest of her was perfectly still. She was good, yes, far better at concealing her reactions than most stormtroopers accustomed to a helmet, and certainly her mental shields were far more disciplined than many of her superiors'; little leaked out for Leia to read. But Phasma wasn't quite as good as she needed to be to hide from Leia.

 

"His personal craft seems to have gone astray," Phasma said. "A minor delay only, we trust. In the meantime, I would be pleased to escort you."

 

"Well," Leia said, holding Phasma's eyes with her own. She could read nothing from them, but she didn't need to. She knew Hux had been the fanatic, the hold-out; she knew he had turned on the rest of the First Order's high command days ago. And the more she looked at Phasma, the more certain she was that - after years of tolerance - it had been Phasma who had refused to sacrifice her remaining troopers to Hux's vainglory.  "We must hope he arrives soon. A trifling delay only, I expect, the hyperlanes are still unfortunately cluttered. I should be delighted to accept your escort, General Phasma."

 

 _They will never find his body_ , she heard, loud and clear. _And I have arranged a non-Resistance scapegoat._

 

On the other side of the room Rey started, and Leia saw Finn blink rapidly. She heard Luke skim the surface of Phasma's mind, light, quick and far too practised, and confirm to Leia that those projected words were true.

 

Phasma wasn't Force-sensitive. But she knew how to make her thoughts legible to those who were.

 

Phasma indicated the way forward with one chromium-gauntleted hand. "This way," she said.

 

 _He was prepared to kill an entire battalion of loyal troopers to ruin the talks_ , came that projected voice, flat and emotionless. _He would have done anything. For his own power. Not for the First Order._

 

"Thank you," Leia said, catching Phasma's eye again.

 

Her words had more meaning than one.


End file.
